Jabez Lamar Monroe Curry

Curry, Jabez Lamar Monroe (jāˈbĕz) [key], 1825–1903, American educator, b. Lincoln co., Ga., grad. Univ. of Georgia, 1843. He studied law at Harvard and later became a member of the Alabama legislature, then of Congress (1857–61) and of the Confederate Congress (1861–64). After the Civil War, Curry served as president of Howard College (1865–68), as professor of English and public law at Richmond College (1868–81), and as U.S. minister to Spain (1885–88). After 1881, as administrative agent of the Peabody Fund for Southern Education, Curry established state normal schools and fostered better rural schools throughout the South, further extending his work after 1890 as agent of the Slater Fund. He became (1901) supervising director of the Southern Education Board.